


The Old Man and the Blue Box

by gumboy



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Humor, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-24 07:31:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4910656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gumboy/pseuds/gumboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After finishing up the previous season, I just wondered how it would be if some detached kid with a phone got wrapped up in Doctor's adventures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Mobile Phone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And old man steals a girl's mobile phone which sparks a new adventure

She wasn't looking where she was going first of all. Her eyes were glued to her mobile where she was constantly updating or reading 

various social feeds. She was so engrossed she didn't even hear the groaning/grinding noise or the fact that a blue police box 

materialized out of thin air.

So she walked right into it, smacking it rather hard and falling straight on her bum.

The door flung open and some grandpa wearing a magician's outfit was scowling at her.

"You there! Don't you look where you're going?"

Greta rolled her eyes and finished her tweet. _Getting yelled at by an old man for walking into an old telephone booth. Whatever._

"Give me that!" he shouted and snatched the phone out of her hand and rushing right back into the box.

"Hey!" she shouted and marched in after him. "Who the hell do you think you are?"

"I'm the Doctor. Sorry. Needed to borrow it," he said pointing a green flashlight thing at the phone.

"Give it back," she demanded. "If you need a phone just go to the bloody R&O down the street and buy one yourself."

"I don't have any money," he replied curtly. "I just need it for a bit. I'm sure the rest of the world can live without your little twits or whatever you call them for a few minutes."

"Tweets," she said rolling her eye. God. The guy was like her dad. Or her grandmother. "What are you doing?"

"Tying into other cell phone cameras across the world," he replied. "There's a creature called the-

"Other mobiles?! Give it back!" she said trying to yank it out of the console where he had placed it. "You're going to ruin my data plan."

"I'm trying to save the world, you idiot!" the old man shouted back and smacked her hand away. "Just hold on. There! There he is, the nasty little bugger."

With grandiose motions he began fiddling around with... some kind of weird computer embedded in a table. It was only then she noticed her surroundings.

"What the hell is this place?"

The old man turned around and looked at her in confusion. "What? You're still here?"

"You still have my mobile!"

"Right," he said rolling his eyes as he opened up a door of some sort and began yanking out equipment. "Wait here and you can have it back."

He ran out of the room holding a cage, a ketch-all pole and a yellow rain slicker, slamming the doors behind him.

Greta let out a grunt of frustration and spent the next twenty minutes trying to yank her mobile out of the weird-console thingie. When he returned he was wearing the rain slicker, had pocker marks on his face and the ketch-all pole was broken. In the cage was some weird octopus/starfish thing with a giant eye.

"What? Are you still here?" he growled.

"Phone!" she shouted back. "Now!"

"All right, all right," he groaned and rolled his eyes. Whatever. Greta rolled her eyes right back at him. "I told you I'd be back."

"That was hours ago," she complained. 

"It wasn't hours!" he shouted back but then paused as if he had to think about it.

"Whatever. Just give me my mobile,"

The old man started to get cross. "Look whoever you are, you don't just march in here and start making demands!"

"You stole my mobile!"

"Right! Whatever. Here," he pulled it out of the squishy part of the console and handed it back. "Happy now? Now you can go back to your dreary little life you pretend to see through a tiny pink box with Hello Kitty on it."

"My life is is fine," she said trying to get her apps up and running again. "I see plenty of things."

The old man, the Doctor or whatever let out a snort of derision. "You have no idea what you can see. You really want to see something? I'll show you something!"

She really wasn't listening. She was back on her phone and trying to get Instagram to work. "Whatever," she said half listening.

The room began to lurch a bit and the groaning/grinding sound started up again.

The old man gave her a smirk as the TARDIS began to dematerialize.

Oh. He was going to show her something, all right.


	2. Traveling with the old man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor takes the girl on a tour of space and time.
> 
> She's not impressed

"Are you telling me you don't find this interesting at all?"

The old man was almost shouting again. Greta rolled her eyes. "It's cliff where someone wrote 'Hello Sweetie' on it. What's the big deal?"

"What's the big deal?!"

That started another ten minute tirade about the universe and ended up with him dragging Greta back into the blue box.

"I still don't get any service," she complained and held up her phone as the old man started playing with all the equipment on the octagonal thingie.

"Fine!" he spat out in frustration. He snatched the mobile out of her hand and pointed his green flashlight at the phone. Meanwhile the box lurched and started making that grinding noise again. "I don't know why I'm doing this," he complained. "Seems to me you'd be better off without any phone service."

"Then who would I talk to?" Greta complained.

"You don't even use this to talk! You send text messages and pictures of yourself!"

"That's totally talking."

The old man grunted and tossed the phone back at her. "I just came up with a good reason to give you your phone service back."

"What's that?"

"So I don't have to listen to you complain," he snapped back and headed to the door as the grinding had just stopped. "Come on, girl. I'm show you something so fantastic you'll forget all about your data plan."

Greta groaned and followed him out. "Where are we going?"

"To a planet where dogs have no noses."

****

"Can we go now? I'm bored."

The old man let out yet another exasperated sound. "How in the world can you be bored?"

"There's nothing here that's interesting."

The old man pointed to a man in the town square. "What do you call that?"

"Juggling."

"He's juggling geese!"

"Still boring."

She took a picture anyway. Somebody might favorite it.

****

 

"If you could touch the alien sand and hear the cries of strange birds, and watch them spin around in another sky, would that satisfy you?"

"You mean like the beach?"

"Sure. Why not?"

"I don't like the beach."

"Of course you don't."

****

"Stop that!"

The old man snatched the phone out of her hand and started pointing at it with his green flashlight again. 

"Hey! What gives?!"

"No photos of me or the TARDIS," he snapped. "I won't allow it."

"Pfft. Like anyone is going to like a photo of you," she snarked.

He scowled back and threw the phone back in her direction. "Not the point! Do you know what could happen if I show up on someone's social media feed?" he asked as he headed back to the console.

"No."

"Neither do I," he replied as the groaning/grinding sound began. "And I don't want to find out."

****

The old man dragged her into the blue box as more bullets exploded around them. "That was just bloody stupid of you!"

Greta pulled her arm away from him as he slammed the door shut behind. "What'd I do?"

He glared at her. "Do you have any idea where we were?"

She shrugged. "France, maybe?"

"Yes!" he shouted as he threw his arms up in the air. "France! In the middle of the revolution!"

"Yeah. So?"

"Well it was probably a stupid idea to mention the whole thing about cake!"

"Whatever. I like cake," she said shrugging again.

The old man started grumbling again and went over to the console to do whatever it was he did to make the grinding noise start up.

Then a thought occurred to her.

"Hey. If we were in France how come everyone was speaking English?"


	3. Meet the Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girl meets some of the Doctor's gang. The Doctor gets increasingly annoyed.

Greta sat in the parlor updating her feed. _"Grumpy old guy got grumpy because I wouldn't dress up in period costume. Screw that."_

"Give me the mobile," he demanded.

"No," she said not even bothering to look up. "It's not of you or the blue box. I can post it if I want." Two favorites and five retweets. Score.

"You can't just start posting pictures of a Silurian and a Sontaran in Victorian England!" he shouted. "That feed goes back to the present. Your present! You could cause a time paradox!"

That got her to look up from her phone. But not for the reason the old guy wanted. "Pictures of the what and the what?"

He let out a long irritated sound. He was making a lot of those lately. "The lizard lady from the dawn of time and the psychotic potato man!"

"Oh. I liked the potato guy."

"Of course you did."

And right on cue the aforementioned psychotic potato entered the room. "Boy! You'll be happy to know that I am now available to play chess with you. Prepare to be obliterated in the name and glory of the Sontoran empire."

"Bit of advice," the old man warned Greta. "Don't use the life size pieces. They usually contain acid and the board has landmines."

"Doctor! Please do not give out strategic information to the boy! It will cripple my strategies."

"No acid, Strax!"

*****

She was bored but she took a picture of whatever it was anyway. "I'm bored."

"How can you be bored?" he groaned.

"It's just a giant sleeping head in a tank. What am I supposed to do?""

He pointed at the giant head. "Don't you wonder how a being like this came to be? He's _millions_ of years old!"

Greta rolled her eyes. "What? So are you."

The old man bristled at that. "I'm _hundreds_ of years old."

She shrugged and posted the giant head on Twitter. "Same difference," she replied and started walking away.

"No! Not the same difference!" he snapped as he started following her out the door. "Literally! Totally different in quantative measureable amounts."

"Whatever."

****

Kate Stewart blinked as she first heard and then saw the TARDIS appear in her office. A second later the Doctor came strutting out with some new girl walking behind him; her eyes glued to her phone.

"Doctor," Kate said warmly. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

The Doctor paused and gave Kate a curious look. "I thought you called me?"

"Noooo," she replied carefully. "I haven't called. Everything's rather quiet here lately."

"No," he said shaking his head. "You called and said there was an emergency."

"Afraid not," she said shaking her head back at him. "Maybe a timey-wimey thing?"

The Doctor turned and looked at the girl standing next to him. "You said Kate called and it was an emergency."

"I did," the girl said not looking up from her phone.

The Doctor began to massaged his temples. Kate swore she could see a vein throbbing on his forehead. "She doesn't know anything about a phone call!" he shouted and gestured in Kate's general direction.

The girl looked up from the phone and looked at Kate. "Who's that?"

"Kate!" the Doctor shouted in exasperation.

"No, it's not," she said going back to her phone and shrugging. "I was talking about Katie Jones from back home. She lost her dog."

Kate watched on in amusement as the Doctor began a long tirade about the importance of taking messages as he marched back into the TARDIS with the girl following after him. The door closed and she could still hear the Doctor's voice as the TARDIS began to dematerialize.

Kate then sighed and made a note to find out the girl's identity so she could be interviewed in the Black Archive at some future date.

****

This time it was a museum. He made her sit in front of a bunch of well known paintings she had seen before all the time. She even had the one with the stars on her phone background once. 

"Can we go?" she asked, the boredom very apparent in her voice. "I don't get why you're just staring at painting of a church. It's not like it's going to change."

"You never know," he replied curtly. "Aren't you going to take a picture?"

"Of what?" she asked cluelessly.

He groaned; rolled his eyes and walked out of the gallery.


	4. Facing the opposition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Social media, selfies, cybermen and daleks...
> 
> Whatever.

"Stop looking at your phone!"

She let out a sigh. "What now?"

His arms flew up in the air in aggravation. "Don't you see what's around us?"

Greta shrugged. "A bunch of ugly statues?"

"Exactly!" the old man shouted. "Now whatever you do... don't blink. And for Pete's sake don't take thier picture."

"Whatever."

 

*****

"These guys are seriously annoying," Greta complained as she updated her tumblr feed.

 

"Yes," he replied testily. "That's exactly what they're known for. Other than being little blobs in bonded polycarbide armour and one of the most feared races in the known universe."

"Yeah, they're a bit shrill," she agreed. "When are we leaving?"

"As soon as we can destroy all of them."

"Whatever," she said posting a photo along with the caption: _Check out these giant pepper shakers. I think they're really into pest control_

*****

"May plaque brown your belly! May your mother boil in the cauldron of atonement!"

Greta half-ran and the other half was being dragged along by the grumpy old man. "Those guys are freaky," she commented as she posted another picture to Twitter. "What's their deal?"

"Raxacoricofallapatorians."

"What?"

"They are Raxacoricofallapatorians," he replied with an exasperated sigh. "Isn't it obvious?"

"If you say so. Can we leave now?"

*****

"Stop taking pictures," he said curtly.

"What? They're cute. Like walking mashmallows," Greta replied as she snapped about five more pictures and started posting them.

"You know what they really are?" he asked grimly.

"Cuteness?"

"Human fat and body tissue."

"Ew."

*****

She was being dragged again. It was a real pain trying to take selfies when the old guy kept telling her to run and being dragged to random places.

"Wait here. Let them pass," he said breathing heavily. 

Meanwhile she was looking at the pictures of the metal dudes who kept stomping around them.

"What's with the handlebar on their heads?" she asked.

"Now? Now, you show an interest in what's going around you?"

"Their helmets are weird," she replied as if that explained everything.

He groaned and snatched her mobile out of her hand again.

"Hey!"

"Shut up," he grunted. "I need this to interface into their emotional control chip to turn it off."

"Whatever." Greta scowled and plopped down on the floor, glaring at the old man as he waved his green flashlight around. 

If he screwed up her data plan again he was so going to bashed on her twitter feed.


	5. Life with the Old Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aliens. Energy things. Late for her job. Again.
> 
> Whatever.

She didn't look at the caller id. Now she really wishes she had.

"I'm not coming into work," she groaned into the phone. "I told you! I'm out of town. When am I getting back?"

She put the mobile in her shoulder and looked at the old man who was doing something weird involving a bucket and the octogon thing.

"When are we going back?"

"In a couple of hundred years," he snapped as sparks flew everywhere.

She sighed and held the phone to her ear. "Yeah. Not anytime soon."

*****

"I'm missing something."

She sighed and once again tried to get a signal so she could check her snapchat account.

"Something obvious."

Greta wasn't sure which she hated more: When he was grumpy or when he couldn't figure something out.

"What am I missing?"

Nope. Still no access.

"Seriously. I should know this!"

She let out a grunt of frustration. "Oh for God's sake! The whole thing's a sham! The Dwarves aren't really dwarves. They're aliens."

He blinked at her. "How'd you know that?"

"Because they're always aliens!"

*****

"I'm missing something."

Oh, God. This again.

"Something obvious."

Here we go.

"What am I missing?"

"Are you daft?!" she cried out and shoved her phone in the old man's face.

"What am I looking at?"

"Look at the box! The picture's all wobbly and weird," she said rolling her eyes. "Clearly it's doing some stupid time thingy or energy or there's something stupid alive in the box that wants to eat our brains or something."

His eyes widened. "Of course!"

Then he started ranting about something scientific that went on for another twenty minutes or so. She didn't care. At least he wasn't being annoying.

Oh. Hey. Snapchat was working again.


	6. Meeting the others

"What are we doing here?"

The Doctor stood there watching a building across the street. They had left the blue box way across town and Greta wasn't happy having to hoof all the way over here just to stand around.

"Hmm? What? Did you say something."

"Ugh." She rolled her eyes again. "Are you deaf? What are we doing here?"

"Just checking in on someone."

She looked up from her mobile to see some old lady with red hair tending a garden with what was probably her grandfather or something

"Can we go then?"

Then from across the street, the older man began to stare at Greta and the Doctor. Then he saluted.

The Doctor turned on his heel and grabbed the girl's arm to march her away. "Yep. We're done."

*****

 

"It's not the first time I've said this to someone but you need to be careful."

She wasn't listening. She was too busy composing a tweet. _At some secret military thing. More aliens. Whatever._

"I mean he's all wonderful and brilliant but he's like fire."

Was she still talking? "He's like what?"

"Fire. Stand too close and people get burned."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. Whatever."

 

*****

"See that guy over there?"

She grunted in response as she texted one of her friends. _Meeting more the old guy's friends. Or just creepily watching them from the street."_

"That's Craig. Roomed with him a bit. Though really it was to prevent an alien time ship from killing other people." 

"Great," she said flatly as she continued to text. 

"He shared my memories in a telepathic fashion," he droned on. "Not many people have ever gotten to do that." 

"Great," she said flatly as she continued to text. 

"His son over there? He calls himself Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All. I know that because I speak baby." 

She finally looked up at the kid. Then shrugged as the name didn't seem to fit. "Seems more like a toddler to me.' 

"Well he's not a baby _now_ he retorted. "Probably goes by Alfie now." 

"Whatever. Are we going to talk to these people or just watch them?" 

He gave the girl a dirty look and stomped back to the blue box. 

"Finally," she groaned and followed along. 

***** 

"Hello, Sweetie." 

She looked up from the mobile and gave the woman with the hair a look. Couldn't she see that she was texting? 

"Can you see me dear?" the hair-girl asked then turned and faced the old man. "More importantly. CAN YOU SEE ME?!" she shouted. 

The old man continued to putter around the octogon thing. The hair-girl shrugged and knelt down to Greta. "I need you to do me a favor." 

"Yeah, I don't think so," the girl replied as she tried to upload a picture of a dinosaur. 

The hair-girl just smirked. "Oh. I think you will. Tell me dear, have you ever been to New York City?" 


	7. The Girl who Didn't Care

Okay. So when the lady with the big hair told her about going to New York, she didn't realize that it was going to be a really OLD version of New York

"Ugh."

She barely even got service in this time period. She was totally regretting putting that ugly thing on her wrist and zapping back in time. Way suckier than the blue box.

And then there was the red haired girl and her lame husband losing their shit about her being there. God. What was the big deal about this?

"This is a fixed point in time!" the red head kept shouting. "You can't be here."

"I'm sure this is just some kind of mistake," the lame guy kept repeating.

She let out a long groan. God. Why didn't they get this? "Look, all I know is that the lady with the hair told me to come back her and to get you on some telepathic conference call or something with a guy in a bow tie."

That's when the two of them froze in shock.

"Did you say lady with the hair?"

"Yeah," she replied. "Big hair. She's a bit snippy actually."

"River," the lame guy said grabbing Greta. "You mean River Song."

"I guess," she said with a shrug.

Now the red head girl was grabbing her. "How did you get here?"

Greta shrugged and rolled her eyes. "I don't know. She said something about timey-wimey. What does that even mean?"

*****

Greta was getting really bored. Because apparently she was now invisible and telepathic. Or something.

She wasn't exactly sure how she got back in the box. She hadn't used the wrist thing. And now her mobile reception was really horrible.

"Raggedy Man, good night."

She looked up from her phone and the girl with red hair was talking to some guy in a bow tie.

Greta rolled her eyes and went back to her phone after snapping a picture and posting it. _Bow tie. How lame_

*****

Not much long she was back in the blue box. The red haired girl and the lame guy were still in New York and bawling their eyes out from some reason. The old man didn't even notice she was gone.

"Did you like it?"

She looked up. The old man had some weird smile on his face.

"What?"

"New York. Did you like it?"

Oh. So he did know.

"It was lame," she said with a shrug. "Some lady with weird hair made me go."

"Yeah, I gathered that," he replied and... almost seemed friendly.

She shrugged and went back to her phone.

He went back to the octagon and fiddled with the controls. There was another lurch and a groaning sound and finally another lurch.

"Ugh. Where are we going now?"

He opened the door and gestured. "Home," he replied. "You can go home."

"Finally!" she said with exasperation. "About time."

But right as she was ready to go through the door she hesitated. "So... um. Thanks for showing me stuff. I guess."

The old man almost smiled again. "And thank you."

"Whatever. We're not going to hug are we?" she replied.

"Oh, hell no," he half-chuckled.

And with that the girl who didn't care walked out of the blue box and walked away.

Texting.

And not looking where she was going.


End file.
